This invention has been created without the sponsorship or funding of any federally sponsored research or development program.
The present invention is directed to a striking bag or kick bag for physical training. The physical training can be for activities such as boxing, martial arts, aerobics, or as part of an overall physical fitness program. The bag is not limited to kicking and may be punched as in the case of training by a boxer.
Kick bags are relatively heavy as compared to xe2x80x9cpunching bagsxe2x80x9d which are most often associated with boxing. For this reason, kick bags are frequently referred to as xe2x80x9cheavy bagsxe2x80x9d, and range from 25 pounds to 100 pounds. Most kick bags are suspended from a fixed support and swing when kicked. The weight of the bag provides resistance to kicking and, therefore, promotes timing and strengthening of the muscles involved in delivering a kick. Kick bags are a popular and widely used training tool for a wide range of physical activities.
Despite their popularity, suspended kick bags have certain limitation. In order to provide resistance to kicking, the kick bag must be relatively heavy and, due to space restrictions, must also be relatively dense. Bag densities range from 7 pounds to 11 pounds per cubic foot. Although kick bags are filled with a compressible material, the impact resistance of the kick bags can be detrimental to the joints of young or untrained users and cannot be used as part of any rehabilitation exercise. In spite of this resistance to impact, highly skilled and conditioned kickers can deliver a kicking blow with such timing and force to cause even the heaviest bag to swing a substantial amount. In a sense, this provides positive feedback to the kicker. However, the kicker must wait for the bag to xe2x80x9csettle downxe2x80x9d or xe2x80x9ccatchxe2x80x9d the bag to stop it from swinging. The efforts to xe2x80x9csettlexe2x80x9d the kick bag interferes with the user""s workout. One solution to this problem is to have another person stand behind the bag to prevent it from swinging. The need to have another person involved is a very limiting factor. If the kickers work as a pair, their own workouts are cut in half time-wise.
The problems associated with the swinging of the suspended kick bag are avoided by free standing kick bags. This type of kick bag is mounted on a base filled with sand or water. The bag and base assembly weighs between 150 pounds and 275 pounds. The high weight of this type of kick bag makes it difficult to move and may be too heavy for some individuals to move. These and other difficulties experienced with the prior art kick bags have been obviated by the present invention.
It is, therefore, a principal object of the present invention to provide a suspended striking bag or kick bag which avoids all of the problems of prior art suspended kick bags.
Another object of the invention is the provision of a suspended striking bag which provides a low impact to kicking and is highly resistant to swinging from kicks.
A further object of the invention is the provision of a suspended striking bag that is lighter than prior art suspended striking bags or kick bags of comparable size and provides greater resistance to kicking than said prior art kick bags.
Another object of the present invention is the provision of a suspended striking bag which is easy to use and store.
In general, the invention consists of a kick bag or striking bag assembly which includes a primary bag adapted to be suspended from a fixed support and an anchor bag suspended from the primary bag. The anchor bag is smaller and heavier and, therefore, considerably denser than the primary bag. More specifically, the anchor bag is pivotally connected to the primary bag and the primary bag is pivotally connected to the fixed support.